۞ O you who believe, be custodians of justice (and) witnesses for God, even though against yourselves or your parents or your relatives. Whether a man be rich or poor, God is his greater well-wisher than you. So follow not the behests of lust lest you swerve from justice; and if you prevaricate or avoid (giving evidence), God is cognisant of all that you do. 135 O believers, believe in God and His Messenger and the Book He has revealed to His Apostle, and the Books revealed before. But he who believes not in God and His angels and the Books and the prophets and the Last Day, has wandered far away. 136 Indeed, those who have believed then disbelieved, then believed, then disbelieved, and then increased in disbelief - never will Allah forgive them, nor will He guide them to a way. 137 Announce thou to the hypocrites that theirs shall be a torment afflictive. 138 As for those who take the deniers of the truth for their allies rather than the believers -- do they seek honour in their company? Surely all honour belongs to God. 139 And indeed Allah has sent down to you in the Book that whenever you hear the signs of Allah being rejected or being made fun of, do not sit with those people, until they engage in some other conversation; or else you too are like them; undoubtedly Allah will gather the hypocrites and the disbelievers, all together, into hell. 140 These hypocrites watch you closely: if victory is granted to you by Allah, they will say: 'Were we not with you?' And were the unbelievers to gain the upper hand, they will say: 'Did we not have mastery over you, and yet we protected you from the believers?' It is Allah Who will judge between you on the Day of Resurrection, and He will not allow the unbelievers, in any way, to gain advantage over the believers. 141